


Time.

by themostbitterofpoisons



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, Gen, Self Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 04:47:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themostbitterofpoisons/pseuds/themostbitterofpoisons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time fascinates Louis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting so I'm feeling pretty uncomfortable about this. Basically I was having a really bad day and somehow all of my depressing and unconventional thoughts ended up in an incredibly long extended description of time and pretty weak and underdeveloped character of Louis. Completely unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own and feedback is very much appreciated.

Time.

 

Time fascinates Louis.

 

Time is everything that Louis wants to be. Time is infinite, it stretches on for eternity, twisting and turning, dodging death and triumphing over fear, reining supreme over everything; urging life on like a current in a river, crashing up over the edges of all limits, pushing a stone upstream into the great unknown, into further time still. Time slows for nobody, it defines the edges of society, as solid and linear as a pencil to paper, wearing down and thin but never seizing, never becoming truly erased. Time never ends, never falters, never runs out like drugs or money, has a storage bank so large that one could drown themselves in time, choking on the minutes, hours and seconds, their heart faltering to the sound of the heavy metronome, counting beats of eight in the dance that ends in the downfall of all that is human. Flesh can break, but time cannot. Time is both blessed and cursed, time fights against everything and everyone, time is hated but also loved. Time is spent like money, time is wasted like autumn leaves being trampled into the ground, until they disintegrate and become nothing, their beauty never truly admired. Time needs not to be acknowledged, for it is already there, ticking away in the back of one’s head, pounding away at the skull like a hammer in the body of a piano, carving out a tune to march one to death.

 

Louis wonders if we pay our debts to time, if every moment he spends lying to himself and the people around him will result in his minutes wearing thinner, in his seconds counting down until time continues but he does not, until he bleeds out the hours he owes, until the blood stills and the second hand creates ripples in the red around his watch face. Louis regards time as neither a friend nor an enemy, although he thinks fleetingly that time shows no mercy. Time takes people before they are even born, time is what bores children into the numb dullness of “is this it?”, is what entertains the hopes of millions, two-stepping around their prayers to whatever insignificant god they hold in their heart, because there is always time, always forever in order for pain to heal, in order to find what’s missing. Louis disagrees, for if time were to promise answers and bring happiness, why would people try to cheat time, to thrown themselves from dizzy heights in order to end time, to support death in his bid to win the war wagered between them? Time always wins, time can afford to lose a few unfortunate souls, because time is stronger than even time knows, time is the grand finale that steals the show in which we are all partaking in, time is the final curtain call, is the haunting melody drifting from violin strings tied around skeletons’ necks like a hangman’s noose. Time holds the answers that no man can, time can strike and kill and maim, and time can caress and stretch on for just a little longer to make the impression that people and places and words matter. Does anything really matter to time? Louis doesn't think so.

 

Time is so solid, so drifting, so infinitely strong and graceful,  spinning through the air, cutting like blades at people’s closing wounds, sparking memories that make people cry and bleed and die and waltzing around the bodies like they’re time’s masterpiece, each graveyard a gallery of time’s personal paintings, red being the color of time, red staining wrists and hips and the lips of the unfortunate lovers to find time’s pieces until time gets tired and wary and rots the art down to nothing, pretends that it never really did exist, that time was just playing like an overly aggressive child breaking crayons when attempting to draw something beautiful. Time can change bodies to soil, dark, silky hair to grey, springy wires, gold rings around dainty fingers to tarnished remnants of love that time cheated out of happiness. Time basks in pain, time lives for pain and false promises of hope and light. Time likes the winter, when it is dark and cold and everybody can see time, changing the sun into a cloak of misery, changing the flowers into shriveled up weeds, the nothingness a stark comparison to time’s summer, to the joy that time once brought. Time likes to pretend and change and snake into people’s heads until they are counting down seconds in a deathly chant, time binding them and leading them to the end.

 

Louis knows better than anybody that time is more flexible than most care to acknowledge, for time can bend and figure 8 and strum on people’s heartstrings before snapping them with time’s bear hands. Time thrives upon wishes and hopes and dreams and crushing them, stabbing people in the heart rather than the back, for although time loves to be sneaky, death can win against time in the aspect, and time never loses. Sometimes, Louis wonders if time wants to lose, wants to lose as much as Louis does. Because Louis craves the feeling of falling, of standing too close to the edge of the cliff, of drinking until his blood and alcohol flow through his veins in equal measure, of pushing Harry to his limit until Louis can see tears stain those pale cheeks. Louis likes to watch the way that Zayn bleeds and Liam shouts and Niall’s smile drops from his face like his bottle onto the floor, smashing into indecipherable pieces. Louis knows that time likes to follow him, even though time is a million steps ahead. Time likes to ghost over Louis’ body as Harry cries into his chest, likes to pinch at the scar tissue that runs along his stomach line, likes to kiss Louis harder than Harry does, biting on his tongue until he can taste blood that is neither his nor time’s. Time likes to draw out the concerts, likes to play Harry’s eyes raking Louis’ body up and down in slow motion, likes to replay the way that Niall’s nervous voice grates over a note again and again in his ear until he wants to scream no, please, stop. But time listens to nobody, not life, not Louis, not death. Time just smirks and asks him for his autograph like every other person he’s ever stumbled across since this time two years ago, and Louis knows that time has chosen him, he must be the one that time captures so that another thing can end, so that they can end.

 

And Louis doesn't mind. He likes the way that time makes him speed and rush and fall over dizzy, beer in his hand and powder in his nose. He wipes his nose of blood and laughs, and Harry shakes his head, his bright eyes dulling into nothing. He kisses Louis, red staining his chin, dripping onto his bare chest where the two birds meet. Louis traces one with his finger, and Harry flinches like he has been scorched hot, scorched red. Harry leaves, and Louis doesn't mourn him. He knows that Harry will be taken by time, that his minutes are flowing from him as freely as the blood is flowing from Louis’ nostrils. Louis lies in bed and screams into his pillow, the kind of scream that one would hear from the mouths of those on a rollercoaster, the rush and the adrenaline and the feeling of yes, finally. Because Louis just wants to feel, wants to feel so much that he can’t feel anymore, until time runs out and death comes to collect the remnants. Louis doesn't want Liam’s warnings and Zayn curling into his side and begging, doesn't want Niall’s tears dripping onto his shirt, waking up red-eyed the next morning to find Louis gone. And he most certainly doesn't want Harry, doesn't want gyrating hips and wide, green eyes and the promise that things will get better. There’s nothing better than this, and Louis knows that. He’s not stupid, not delusional and breakable and on the edge like they are, he’s freefalling into nothing, time carrying him away faster than a bullet could pierce his skull. He relaxes, knowing that time is his only dealer, that time will give and take and take more until he is nothing but another casket, another celebrity gone before their time. Louis is not a celebrity, he is Louis and time is the only one that can understand that. Time leads everyone on, forces them to dance and be lifted and carried and thrown to the ground until bones crack and blood seeps onto the dancefloor and time has no choice but to find another partner. Louis welcomes time into his arms faster than he does Harry, faster than he does Zayn or Liam and Niall or even death. Because time will continue even when death has stolen them all, even when they are nothing but bones, dirt and filth and hungry creatures carving out and filling in the cracks that were never so evident in the lights of camera flashbulbs. Time wins, times beats them all, no matter how on top of the world or down in gutter they may be, time is their beginning and time is their end, and Louis is time's personifier, passive and resistant and determined and weak enough to be meaningless in the end. But there is no end, not for time.


End file.
